Meet Rick

Computer technology pervades our culture like a snake wending
its way across the jungle floor. It is an unassuming creature,
silent and…uh…well, unassuming. But you know
it’s out there so you have to watch your step. Otherwise,
you might find an unexpected guest wrapped around your Keds.

So, even if you treat your PC with kindness or take loving
care of your fractional T-1 USB color scanner, and it doesn’t
matter if these technologies respond by serving you reliably---providing
many wasted hours just staring at spreadsheets, pie charts
or multi-threaded knobby things---regardless of all of that,
don't be fooled. The evil technology serpent is not your friend.
A moment’s inattention and the snake will strike, crashing
some nameless PCI bridge or whacking the brains out of your
floppy disk drive. And when that moment of miscalculation
arrives, when you feel the fangs, you call me.

My name is Spinner, Rick Spinner. There are jillions of PCs
in America, way more if you’re reading this in the distant
future, and I’m one of the guys in the trenches, someone
who keeps your machine above the downtime line; I keep that
serpent at bay. Oh yeah, I also wear an ID badge and charge
rabid amounts of money. I am a consultant.

I fix computers. When they don’t cooperate, when I
can’t fix them, I smile and make you think it’s
your fault then run like the wind.

To some, what I do is an ugly business. It’s clean
up work they don’t want to see. Like passing a state
trooper as he loads a drunk driver into his cruiser, it’s
distasteful but thank God someone is there to do it. Still,
others believe PC technicians symbolize all that is right
in the universe. We are honorable and good, heroes that rescue
their equipment, their very lives, from the brink of disaster.

Of course there are those who think consulting is the work
of the devil, a dark art. While they don’t know the
half of it, I’m pretty sure they’ve seen those
three digits tattooed on our foreheads. If there is such a
thing as voodoo, fixing computers is it.

But to me it’s just a job, it’s what I do. Yeah,
this business can be ugly and, okay, sometimes I feel like
turning in my ID badge, throwing away the prestige and buying
a little bar on some forgotten stretch of beach where I can
make an easy fortune serving up liquor and watching the chicks.
But I don’t have any money saved---man, even the airfare
would be a stretch, and buying a chunk of real estate? Forget
it.

Besides, who would do this dirty job, if not me? Someone
has to load that drunk into the squad car, someone has to
link the IP stack to the mainframe router, someone has to
charm the snake. That someone is me. I am them.

My name is Rick Spinner. I’m a tech, a consultant,
and sometimes I even know what I’m talking about. These
are my stories; none of the names have been changed because
you won’t know any of these poor slobs.